Political Science Department Welcomes New Faculty Member – Michael Mousseau

Michael Mousseau is a political economist with a primary focus on the causes of war and peace. He received his Ph.D. from Binghamton University (1998) after several years of ethnographic study in the Middle-East (1984, 1991), Central America (1985, 1987), the Soviet Union (1991), East Africa (1991), India (1992), and China (1992). He joined UCF in 2013 after fifteen years teaching and conducting research at Koç University in Istanbul. He has been a research fellow at the Saltzman Institute of War and Peace Studies, Columbia University (2010-2011); the Belfer Center International Security Program, Harvard University (2005 – 2006); and the United Nations Studies Program, Yale University (2003).

His research has identified how economic conditions can affect political culture and institutions, and war and peace, within and among nations, with the implication that a permanent global peace is possible if developed nations would expend the resources necessary to make jobs widely available in the markets of developing countries. He has also shown how urban poverty, especially when combined with rapid population growth, promotes the values and mindsets conducive to supporting terror and other forms of political violence; how market-oriented development promotes human rights and the democratic rule of law; and how the famous “democratic” peace is probably spurious, with advanced markets the more likely cause of both democracy and peace among nations.

Articles have appeared in Conflict Management and Peace Science, European Journal of International Relations, International Interactions, International Security, International Studies Quarterly, Journal of Conflict Resolution, and the Journal of Peace Research.